Battered Alien Spouses Find a Way to Escape an Immigration Trap

By MARVINE HOWE

Published: August 25, 1991

A young woman who came to New York City from a village in South China three years ago says her husband beat her so fiercely that she feared for the safety of their unborn child. But she was even more afraid to report the abuse to the police.

Like many other immigrants, the woman, who is 24 years old and said her name is Raco M., came to this country with "conditional residence" as the wife of an American citizen. Until the Immigration Act of 1990, Raco was faced with the choice of remaining with an abusive husband or risking deportation.

But a little-known amendment to the act insures that a battered spouse or child who is an alien can file for permanent residence without the cooperation of the batterer. Providing an Escape Route

Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of Rochester, said she introduced the amendment on behalf of "thousands of immigrant spouses and their children, terrorized by domestic violence."

Representative Slaughter said she hoped the new law, which amended the 1986 Marriage Fraud Act, would provide immigrant spouses in legitimate marriages "an escape from beatings, insults and fear." She said Asian women were particularly vulnerable because of the common practice of arranged marriages.

Congress passed the Marriage Fraud Act in an effort to reduce the number of fake marriages in which an immigrant and a United States citizen were married simply to enable the immigrant to qualify for immediate permanent residence status as a spouse. The fraud act required that an alien live with the husband or wife for two years and that the alien's petition for permanent residence be made jointly with the spouse.

But the law did not address the question of abusive treatment and allowed a waiver of the joint petition only if the alien began divorce proceedings. Threat of Deportation

"Batterers invariably used the threat of deportation as a weapon in the abuse of their alien wives," said Pat Eng, founder of the New York Asian Women's Center. She said most Asian women with conditional residence were unwilling to speak out against domestic violence for fear of losing their legal status.

"Many Asian women, who have been trapped in abusive relationships, will now have the courage to come forward," said Ignatius Bau, staff lawyer with the San Francisco Lawyers' Committee for Urban Affairs. For the first time, he said, the law permits a foreign spouse to waive the joint petition requirement if it can be demonstrated that he or she was battered by an American spouse.

On the West Coast, the first shelter for abused Asian women, with 12 rooms, was opened in 1981 in Los Angeles. Another shelter, in the San Francisco Bay area, can house 20 abused women and their children.

The New York center operates an emergency shelter program for battered Asian women and receives referrals from local hospitals, the police, churches and social-service groups.

In April, the New York center received the President's Volunteer Action Award in a ceremony at the White House. "We chose them because of their extraordinarily high level of volunteer commitment, which is so vitally important for the community," said Suzanne Israel Tufts, regional director of Action, the Federal Government's domestic volunteer agency.

Situated in a cubbyhole of an office in the Family Court Building in lower Manhattan, the center runs a score of safe houses and safe apartments. The voluntary organization was founded in 1982 and its staff includes women who have been battered by their mates or survived sexual assaults. Also on the staff are relatives of battered women, as well as other concerned women.

The center also operates a multilingual 24-hour hot line, (212) 732-5230, for Asian women in need of help as a result of battering or sexual assault. Last year, Ms. Eng said, the center received more than 2,000 calls and helped about 250 battered women. Raco's Plea for Help

One of those who called the hot line was Raco, who was six months pregnant last year when, she said, her husband beat her so badly that she fled into the streets and asked the police for help. They took her to a public shelter and put her in touch with the center.

Raco, who looks like a teen-ager, fears retaliation from her husband, a Chinese-American who courted her by mail for 10 years.

Three months after arriving in this country, Raco said, her husband began hitting her in the face because she could not get along with his parents, who lived with them in an apartment in Manhattan. Then the beatings increased, she said, because she did not want a child right away.

"He threatened not to sponsor me for permanent residence if I didn't carry the pregnancy to term," she said through an interpreter. But the violence continued even after she agreed to have the baby.

The center provided Raco with a safe house and help in the birth of her daughter. It also provided a lawyer to begin divorce proceedings. She has since received her green card.

Ms. Eng said women like Raco should have fewer difficulties in obtaining permanent residence as a result of the new legislation.

Photo: Pat Eng, founder of the New York Asian Women's Center. (Bill Swersey for The New York Times)